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An electronic literary magazine striving for the very best in
contemporary fiction, poetry, and essays.
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Editor: Sung J. Woo (WHIRLEDS@delphi.com)
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VOLUME II NUMBER 1 JANUARY 1995
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Table of Contents
The Real World..........................................................xx
_Fiction_
"The Perpetual Temporal Man," by David S. Dadekian......................xx
"The Girl Was Six...," by Jamie Hollabaugh..............................xx
The Works of Martin Zurla
"Fred," a monologue................................................xx
"Sandy," a monologue...............................................xx
"Fishing," a short story...........................................xx
_Poetry_
"After Five at the Office," by Len Edgerly..............................xx
"Life, the Universe, and Everything," by Marc A. Leckstein..............xx
"XY," by Anthony Fox....................................................xx
"Perceptions," by Laura D. Turk.........................................xx
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Whirlwind cannot continue without submissions from established and amateur
writers on the net. If you or anyone you know is looking to publish
contemporary fiction, poetry, or essays, please don't hesistate to get a
copy of the work to us. Mail submissions to: WHIRLEDS@delphi.com.
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Whirlwind Vol. 2, No. 1. Whirlwind is published electronically on a
bi-monthly basis. Reproduction of this magazine is permitted as long as
the magazine is not sold and the entire text of the issue remains intact.
Copyright (C) 1995, authors. All further rights to stories belong to the
authors. Whirlwind is produced using Aldus PageMaker 5.0 and WordPerfect
5.1 on an IBM-compatible computer and is converted into PostScript format
for distribution. PostScript is a registered trademark of Adobe Systems,
Inc. For back issue and other info, see our back page. Send questions to:
WHIRLEDS@delphi.com.
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THE REAL WORLD
Folks, it's been a tough couple of months for me. Frankly, I'm amazed that
this issue is out and about. Let me tell you what's been going on (since
I'm sure you're all dying to know).
The year 1994 has been a very, very busy one for me. I graduated from
college this past May; then in August, I went to South Korea to land a job
as a conversational English teacher. I returned after two weeks, looked
for jobs here in the States, and was, to my surprise, hired.
TV Guide offered me a position as a Text Writer for their National
Programming Department, so I grabbed it. After the completion of my first
week at TV Guide, I pumped out my first blurb -- which also turned out to
be my last.
That's because I got a more lucrative job offer from IEEE, a name which I'm
sure some of you netfolk recognize (for those who do not, it stands for The
Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers). So, for the past
month, I've been working as an Assistant Editor for IEEE's
Transactions/Journals Department.
Because of these massive fluctuations in my life, I was unsure whether I
could continue to publish Whirlwind. You know, it seems like I go through
this "doubtful phase" before each issue, so maybe it's becoming a ritual
more than an actual threat. In any case, my life is settling down
somewhat, so at the very least, expect to see the March issue.
As for this one, check out some fantastic stuff from Martin Zurla; three of
his works are presented in this issue. We also have works from as far as
Australia, so please treat yourselves to a global feast of letters.
Lastly, there is exciting news I would like to share with you. Stewart
O'Nan, who gave us an excerpt from his current novel Kissing the Dead in
the premiere issue of Whirlwind, has published his first novel with
Doubleday. It is titled Snow Angels, and I urge everyone to read this
wonderful book--it's a good, solid work by an established writer. The
book's been out since November 1994, so your local bookstore or your
library should have a copy of it.
That's it. I look forward in seeing you all again in March. Enjoy.
Sung J. Woo
Editor
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FICTION
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THE PERPETUAL TEMPORAL MAN
by David S. Dadekian
Robert Ford was a perpetual temporal man. He was never sure exactly when
it happened to him, though he is fully aware of exactly when it happened.
He was twenty-five when he realized he was fifteen when it happened.
And he was eighty-two when he died. Every moment in time became available
to Robert on the day he turned fifteen, though it took him ten years to
realize it. Or maybe he was still fifteen and just wanted to be ten years
older. Or maybe he was eighty-two and crazy.
Robert Ford didn't move through time. He wasn't a time traveler like
he read about in the comic books he kept in his closet, which he
immediately realized would become valuable only if he sold them before his
thirty-fourth year, when all of the world's reading material -- past and
present -- would become universally available.
Robert constantly lived in all moments of his life, from fifteen to
eighty-two. And when he became aware of his ability, he realized how to
use it for his own benefit.
At first Robert tried to tell others about his seeming omniscience.
But he couldn't do anything to prove he wasn't just a lunatic. If he told
someone about a major future event, that would always change the future.
And if he tried to prove his ability to someone through some minor example
of future-telling, it would be considered coincidence. It took him forever
until his best friend Kathy finally believed him. This conversation took
place at a diner, roughly during the twenty-fifth year, third month,
seventeenth day, and thirteenth hour of Rob's life.
"So let me get this straight, Rob," Kathy said. "You're telling me
you are living now, a minute from now, ten years from now, ten years ago,
and so on?"
"Exactly, Kat," replied Robert.
"So what I am going to say next?"
"It doesn't work that way. I know what you will say next, but as soon
as I tell you, you'll change what you are going to say."
"O.K. So predict the future."
"I can't talk about the future without changing the future," Rob said
as he took a sip of his coffee.
"So how do you know it's the future?"
"Because I'm living in the future, and I saw the change the last time
I told someone the future."
"Don't you mean you will see the change?"
"I try to use the past tense. It makes things easier on my mind.
I've already died, but I'm still here with you, and I'm still sitting in
World History when I'm a sophomore in high school."
"I see how it can get confusing. Stick with the past tense. And tell
me about changing the future."
"You think I'm crazy!" Rob exclaimed.
"Not just yet."
"Oh great," Rob said putting his head in his hands.
"What?"
"My telling you this gets me put away."
"I'm still listening to you."
"Well listen to this. Do you remember the crash of the space shuttle
Challenger?"
"The Challenger never crashed, Rob."
"Exactly, I did that. I didn't mean to, though I'm not sorry about
changing it, so I left it changed."
"That's in the past."
"Not when I'm fifteen."
"Not when you were fifteen you mean?"
"Right."
"I'm getting confused." Kathy took out a cigarette and lighter.
"You're going to die of lung cancer you know."
Kathy looked at Rob with her mouth open and put the cigarette down.
"I'm sorry, Kathy. I didn't mean that as fact, just as a crack about
your smoking."
"So how do I die?"
"I can't tell you that, it'll change things."
"What if you've got this ability so you can change things?"
"I've thought of that."
"So what about the space shuttle Challenger?" Kathy asked.
"When I became aware of my power, I told a science teacher in high
school about the Challenger's future problem with the o-rings."
"Oh my God!" Kathy said loudly, almost spilling her coffee.
"So you remember Mr. Newborn revealing his study of the shuttle
program to NASA, and his being awarded a commendation for the probable
prevention of a disaster."
"Yes! That was you?"
"Remember how he always evaded the question of how he knew to examine
the o-rings? What was he going to say? One of his students told him about
two years before it happened."
"I am overwhelmed if this is completely true."
"Apparently you believe me."
"How can you be sure?"
"I'm not being committed now."
"You know I would never commit my best friend."
"But if we had stopped this conversation five minutes ago in your
life, you would have," Rob picked up Kathy's cigarette and lighter.
"So your future still changes?"
"Yes," Rob began as he lit the cigarette. "Now I smoke for the rest
of my life."
"Just from that one?"
"If I allow myself to continue the habit. However, I still live until
I am eighty-two." Rob put out the cigarette and handed the lighter back to
Kathy.
"And now?"
"Now I have tried a cigarette when I was sixteen, and yet I will still
live until I'm eighty-two."
"What about suicide?"
"I tried to shoot myself when I was forty. The gun wouldn't work at
all. Blew my car up when I was forty-three. Lived with third degree burns
until I was eighty-two. I changed that future pretty quickly. Like I said
changing my life is pretty easy, and I guess since you know about my
ability, your life can be pretty malleable from now on too. But changing
big events is difficult."
"What do you mean?"
"In twenty-two years a major software company was integrated into
ninety-nine percent of the world's computers. The irate, brilliant, former
owner of the company unleashes a virus that virtually immobilizes the
planet. I've already tried thousands of different ways to alert people to
this guy without making myself look crazy. Unfortunately, nothing has
worked so far. I'm working on it now as we speak. I just finished working
on getting you to go to the senior prom with me."
"We went to the senior prom together."
"Exactly."
"Robert, that's really creepy."
"I haven't really done anything major. Even if we hadn't gone to the
prom together, we'd still be sitting here. You just would have gone with
Tony Simpson."
"Tony Simpson! What was I thinking? He got drunk and puked all over
his date."
"He would have done the same to you."
"Thank you very much, I had a great time with you."
"I did it, Kathy."
"Did what?"
"I just stopped the computer virus, but now another problem's coming
up."
"Rob, all this is a bit too much for me."
"Damn, my stopping the infection leads to a splitting of the world's
computer systems. We're completely unprepared when we make contact with
life from another planet."
"Rob?"
"Just a second, Kathy. Sometimes this really taxes my mind."
"I'm going, Rob," Kathy gathered her things and took a dollar out of
her purse. She put it on the table and stood to leave.
"No, wait a minute. I'm sorry, Kathy, I didn't mean to freak you
out."
"It's O.K., Rob. I'm fine. And don't worry, I'm not going to have
you committed. Though you must already know that."
"I should have never told you, Kathy. In fact, I'm not going to tell
you."
________________________________________
David S. Dadekian's story "It Was a Dimly Lit...,"
appeared in the May 1994 issue (Vol. 1, No. 2).
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THE GIRL WAS SIX...
by Jamie Hollabaugh
The girl was six. Snookie. That was her nickname, she got it because of
the troublemaking girl on the radio played by Fannie Bryce happened to
remind Evelyn's brother of her. Evelyn was tough. She was little compared
to many of her classmates, but she had that toughness that just told people
to leave her alone. Her grandfather was sitting in the yard, sunning
himself in his wheelchair.
(Skinny was sitting in the chair in the den, looking blankly out the
window. Evelyn called him Skinny because he was so thin. He smiled as he
thought of her.)
Snookie laughed as she snuck up behind the old man.
(Skinny could feel the pressure build in his chest.)
She hit him on the back of the head and ran as the old man cried out.
(Skinny couldn't utter a whisper as the pain struck him.)
His glass eye, the one that covered the empty hole left by the Battle of
Antietam was lying on the ground. Snookie laughed with glee as he felt
around, confused, looking for the thing.
(Skinny reached desparately in his pocket, searching for his nitro glycerin
tablets.)
The old man, after retrieving his glass eye and putting it safely into
place began to chase Snookie, yelling at her "You damn rascal, I'll get
you..."
(Skinny whispered, "Evelyn." Only to have the word frozen on his lips
forever by death.)
Snookie was laughing and nearly dancing as her long dark hair flowed behind
her. She ran into the house.
(Evelyn walked to the window outside.)
Snookie peered out the window.
(And looked in the window.)
She saw her grandfather reaching in his pocket for his handkerchief.
(Saw Skinny, hand in pocket, reaching for his nitro glycerin, frozen
forever in time.)
She was panting and laughing.
(She couldn't breathe as she sobbed.)
She was screaming in laughter.
(At the pain.)
I look at my grandmother as she tells me the story of the days when she was
young, and playing with her grandfather. She never speaks of the pains in
her life, when she found my grandfather dead, only the joy.
I can, however, read between the lines.
________________________________________
Jamie Hollabaugh is an eighteen year old college
student who enjoys her sometimes melodramatic life. In her senior year of
high school, she was given first place nationally in a writing contest.
Outside of her writing awards, she was given many music awards for her
clarinet playing, which included a scholarship.
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THE WORKS OF MARTIN ZURLA
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FRED
by Martin Zurla
AT RISE: It's late at night in some small bar located on the upper West
Side of Manhattan. The lights are dim, and the sound of a Charlie Parker
record plays from the bar tape machine. Fred is behind the bar cleaing up.
There is one last unseen patron having her nightcap.
God damnit! Nothin' works in this joint. It's that damn kid of a day
bartender that screws everything up.
(pause)
I go and bring in my own stuff: the stereo, this stupid t.v., my good
tapes; all this stuff and he goes and screws it all up. Well, no more. He
can shove it 'cause I'm takin' it all back.
(pause)
You come in here during the day, right?
(does not wait for a response)
You see any action in here? No action. Ya think the kid was so busy all day
that he couldn't breathe. All he's gotta do is watch soap operas and play
my tapes. So his old man owns the joint, so big deal. I mean, good Christ,
ya think because his old fart of a father owned this dump he'd care a
little more, be concerned and all. Don't ya think so? Nah, he don't give a
rat's ass.
(pause)
But I mean, what's right is right. That kid of a day bartender has never
come into a messy bar. And I do mean NEVER! A human person can take only so
much, have patience for just so long livin' and workin' in squalor, don't
ya think. Seven years a five, maybe six nights a week I gotta come into
squalor. I come into his mess, clean that, do my shift and gotta start
cleaning all over again. That just ain't fair.
(pause)
Heck, I could work one of those plush, pushy upper East Side dives anytime
if I want. But who wants that kinda action? I mean, a person's gotta be
nuts to work those joints. What with young kids fallin' all over each
other, fallin' all over the bar. Young -- yoyos, or whatever they're
called these days -- sittin' for hours in their three piece suits, yellow
ties, whatever, clutchin' on to a Diet Coke or a flat gingerale. These
young kids -- most of which is probably pullin' in a mill a year, dressed
to the balls -- excuse the expression -- dressed ta knock your socks off,
flirtin' and tryin' ta pick up some broad from Mineola or Flushing, who
probably makes as much if nor more than that poor store manikin from
Barney's. It pisses me off to see how these persons act. The older ones,
hell, that's their business, but the kids, Christ, you'd never catch no kid
a mine in those dumps. And probably, deep down inside their hearts, they
don't have any idea why they're in this dump on the East Side in the first
place. I know from where I speak on these matters, I been. I seen their
action. Enough to know better. A friend a mine works this place on First
Avenue in the high seventies, all brass and mirrors this place. You should
hear the horror stories he tells.
(pause)
Yeah, well, I guess not ALL those East Side places is bad. I guess some
persons get lonesome and all, need ta meet up with persons a their own ilk.
But I mean, who's gonna marry somebody who they find in an East Side
singles bar? Ya gotta know why they're there and all. I mean, they must be
there to meet somebody, and if they're there to meet somebody it means that
they ain't met somebody somewhere's else, which means they ain't had all
that much luck in that department; findin' other persons which means that
there are probably reasons why they ain't met somebody already which
necessarily means ta me there's probably somethin' wrong. Ya follow? So, if
there's somethin' wrong with them, like maybe they're ugly or somethin',
fat or too tall or too short, how can they hope to pawn off their
affliction or disability on somebody who's probably got their own problem,
especially in a bar. So they couldn't find nobody, say in school, at a
dance, wherever, when they was at the age for findin' somebody. Or if they
did find somebody and it was the wrong somebody, at least for that time in
their lives, so now they're gettin' up there, maybe in their thirties,
maybe more, and they still got their affliction, they end up goin' to a
bar. They think they can go to an East Side place, a place that peddles
more flesh than you can shake a broom handle at, more flesh than booze,
with the hopes that maybe, 'cause the lighting is so poor and everybody is
gettin' half in the bag and there are nothin' but mirrors all over the
joint...99 percent a these places is mirror...they go there with these
expectations and all, never stoppin' to think a who they are gonna find.
They are gonna find other persons who are just as ugly or just as deformed
as themselves, with just as many problems, if not more. And these other
persons are also lookin' to pawn themselves off on anybody who wants the
takin'. Ya know what I mean? So ya got nothin' but a bunch a defects
lookin' to hook up with more defects. That's what so odd about those
places, one cripple bumpin' into another cripple, both a whom is pretendin'
they ain't cripple, makin' believe they're Fred Astaire or Gingie Rogers,
or whoever, anybody but themselves, who they really are. That's the sad
part, pretendin' ya somebody ya ain't. And they're only gonna get somebody
else who thinks they gotta pretend too. Hell, when the play actin's over,
when ya wake up in the mornin', whatta do then? There ain't nothin' wrong
with bein' a cripple, or bein' ugly. Hell, I got a bum leg but I ain't
goin' around pretendin' it ain't there. Sometimes, maybe it's better to
wear your affliction like a medal, ya know, be proud that maybe ya
different form all the rest, stand out, ya know.
(pause)
Sorry 'bout goin' on like this. Had a rough night last night. Seems like
lately it's gettin' rougher. Ah, but who needs that kinda talk these days.
(pause)
Ya must look a little bit like somebody I know. So, what's your opinion a
West Side? Ya don't have no opinion? Me, people say I got an opinion on
everythin'. Take this jerk of a kid that works days, the one who's old man
owns the place, he don't have an opinion on nothin'. Except maybe that he
should leave a messy bar. But ask that thickhead about somethin', about
anythin', and all he says is, "I don't know". Or, "Who cares". Now that
ain't no way to go through life, is it? A person's gotta be able to feel
somethin', stick-up for somethin', have ideals and maybe some values thrown
in. Ya know, ta have values a what's right and maybe wrong. Don't ya think
so? Take my wife...I mean my ex-wife...she had opinions comin' outta her
ears. I mean, there wasn't a day that went by when she didn't develop a new
opinion 'bout me, a what I did or didn't do. She was full a feelings. I'd
pick my nose, she had an opinion. Maybe I didn't agree with all
her opinions, but at least she made life interestin'. Sometimes my wife
made life so interestin' that all I wanted to do was crawl under a rock and
be bored. Life can be just so interestin' 'til it gets to be a pain in the
ass. Ya know of what I speak? So I usta tell her, I got my own opinions
too. That I got feelin's and all 'bout certain things. Ah, I shouldn't go
talkin' 'bout her, especially when she ain't here to defend herself. It
ain't good for me to go runnin' people down when they're somewhere's else
and not here to speak for themselves. But it's okay to go speakin' 'bout
the kid, he wouldn't know how to defend himself even if he were here. I
guess he's a good kid at rock bottom. So, 'bout my wife, she was an okay
lady after all is said and done. She had her values I guess and I had mine,
most of which had to do with how to raise our kid. Yup, now do I look like
I had a boy who'd a been thirty-seven years old this year? A course I
don't. Well, that's right, I was a child-bride. I reached puberty at about
the age a six, maybe seven. No kiddin', I was old for my age. Had to grow
up fast in the Bronx. So we had a kid. It was the first time in my life
when I didn't have a real opinion on somethin'. It just happened.
(pause)
Most a the problem with me and the wife was about the kid. If it was a
girl, it would been different. She woulda been in charge. But with a son,
that's a father's responsibility, right? A son's growin'up is up to the
father, a girl's growin' up is up to the mother. It's that simple. My son,
he ain't around no more. He got hurt back in sixty-nine and died.
(pause)
He comes home one day and says right outta the blue that he wants ta join
up. I says, join what? The Army, he says. I laughed and told 'em he was too
damn young. Said he could join if I signed the papers. When his old lady
heard that she went through the roof. She started screamin' that he was
bein' a fool, and that I was a bigger fool for even listenin' ta such talk.
It took me a hellava long time to calm her down.
(pause)
Hell, this could be a real nice joint. Ya know how many times I told the
old man ta do somethin' ta fix it up? A hundred, maybe more. But no sir,
not that cheap son-of-a-bitch. He don't wanna improve nothin', not even his
own kid for Christsakes. Hell, if he were my kid, he'd be spendin' his time
makin' some kinda contribution.
(pause)
But he ain't my kid, it's that simple.
(pause)
I don't know why I'm sayin' all this about his kid, Christ, I went and
signed those damn papers so my boy could join up.
(pause, then softly)
I sent him over there. I mean, hell, he wanted to go and make somethin' of
himself. But I did wait 'til he was seventeen. His mom hated me for that,
signin' those papers and lettin' 'em go off like that. But ya gotta do what
ya believe in, what ya believe is the right thing and all, make decisions
in life. I mean, we was at war. I woulda gone ta Korea if I coulda. I
wanted. I ustta think that's what a man's suppose ta do, isn't it? If your
country calls for help, ya gotta respond to that call, right? I told 'em
that he was a real man goin' off like that. Just like so many other guys
had done before 'em. So he goes and gets killed like that. So, a lot a
other fellas got killed. They sent us a really nice letter and all. Said he
died fightin' the enemy, defendin' freedom, a real hero. I was proud. And I
believed that for a long time. Right up until Tony Conti came home and I
ran into 'em one day in the street. Tony was in the same unit as the kid
when they went over there. So I took Tony for a couple a pops, ya know, ta
celebrate and all. Well, Tony and me was talkin' and drinkin' and I knew,
had this funny feelin' all along about that letter and the way the kid
bought it and all. So I up and asked Tony just how it happened. He told me
that the kid...that the kid...ah...the kid went and stumbled on somethin'
and fell outta a truck and another truck that was followin' ran 'em over,
crushed his head with the front wheel. Tony said that they hadn't seen no
combat or nothin' like that, just bein' transported from one place to
another. A lousy accident. Now ain't that funny. It coulda happened right
here on Broadway and 72nd street.
(pause)
I guess the reason that I'm bringin' all this up ta you is that I've been
thinkin' a lot about it lately, especially 'bout the kid bartender and all.
Ya gotta talk things out once in awhile, clear up your thinkin', make
decisions 'bout doin' certain things, bounce it off other people. And
you're one hellava listener.
(pause)
Maybe I should say somethin' to the kid's old man, make 'em wake the hell
up. Tell 'em he should teach his kid somethin'. Before, ya know, brfore
it's maybe too late. When he ain't around no more ta talk with, be with. Ta
maybe grow up with. Yeah, I should talk to the old man. Yeah, I think I
will.
FADE TO BLACK
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SANDY
by Martin Zurla
AT RISE: It's a Saturday night, the present. A small, one-bedroom
apartment. Sandy is entertaining a "new" friend.
I'm always trying to deal with this...this... (a smile) How do you think I
felt when I woke up one day and realized my name was Sandy, Sandy Beaches?
Huh? Tell me. No, you don't have to tell me, I know what I felt. I felt
absolutely ridiculous. Wouldn't you? Sure you would. My parents had what
you might call poetic sensibilities. It wasn't all that bad when I was
maybe nine, ten, even into my teens. But, my goodness, I'm a fifty year
old woman and I still have that name. Why don't you sit down.
(pause)
That chair isn't the most comfortable. You'd probably be better on the
sofa.
(pause)
Suit yourself. Anyway, my parents had some sense of humor, right? I
always wanted to ask them why they named me that. Never did. Hell, I sure
hinted around enough times. I would do things like ask them, "What's in a
name," or "a thing by any other name is just any other name," I started
bringing home these stray animals just to see what my parents would name
them. They came up with things like: our cat was called, Steven; our dog,
Phyllis; our bird, who died two days after I brought him home, was called
Napoleon. I even brought home a gold fish one day and asked them to name
it. They didn't even ask whether it was male or female. They named it,
Warren. Warren! Warren was a fish and it had a normal name! I was a
human being and was named after a geographic
terrain. Thank God our last name wasn't "range," they might have called me
"Home On The," -- my father liked westerns -- or thanks be to God it wasn't
"Forest," or "Mudd. We did know some people from Framingham, Mass, called
Mudd. Ethel and Fenton Mudd. Maybe Sandy Beaches isn't all that bad when
compared to Fenton Mudd. But I never had the guts to come right out and
ask why they named me what they named me.
(pause)
You're sure you're comfortable? Something to drink?
(pause)
Am I hogging the conversation? (the unseen Harry smiles) I know that I can
change it. My name, I mean. Make it legally something else. But the
thought of doing that always bothered me for some reason. It's like hiding
out or something akin to that. A name is a person, right? It kind of
defines us in a strange sort of way.
(pause)
Take your name, for example. Harry. HAA-RRRRRRR-YYYY. Harry! Harry.
Harry is a nice name. It doesn't scream out at you. It's just what it is
-- Harry. And Harry's a good name for a guy just breaking forty years old.
Funny, but some people have to grow into a name. Like seeing a young kid
who's called Seymour. It doesn't look right. "Hey Seymour," somebody
yells and a small, two foot tall, blond headed kid turns around and says,
"Yes, mother. He would never say, Mom, or Mommy. Seymours all say,
mother, mother or father. But like Jane, Janes always say -- in a very
ladylike way, "Yes, Ma'am, no Ma'am, why yes Sir, why no Sir. And Billys,
oh yeah, you can always tell a Billy or a Hank. A Hank would never say,
"Mother, would you please pass the butter," or "Why Father, what a nice
pipe you're smoking. Hell, Hank would probably say -- no matter how old,
"Pass the Goddamn spinach, will ya! or "Move the hell over, buddy.
(pause)
Sure you're comfortable? You have a nice smile.
(pause)
You see what I mean, Harry? A name sort of defines who you are. The name
Harry kind of defines you. You're not too tall. And you're not too short.
In between. And you want to know something else, thinning hair becomes
you, is very becoming to a man named Harry. And your hands, they're kind
of small, delicate. That'd be the only aspect of you that I would say
doesn't really fit.
(pause)
Harry and Sandy. Sandy and Harry. Kind of has a ring to it, don't you
think. Sure you wouldn't like a drink? I think there's vodka. A Diet
Coke?
(pause)
Listen, ah, Harry, I'm really glad I invited you over tonight. Really.
You go to that place often? I mean, you hang out at that particular bar?
Me, it was my first time. This friend of mine, Crystal -- a girl I work
with -- she goes there. Told me I should stop by and check it out. (laughs
a little) Never thought I'd ever ask a fellah back to my place. Especially
a fellah who ... never mind. So, how do you like my "digs" as they say?
It's a real bargain in this day and age. It's truly difficult to find a
large studio apartment like this for under a thousand dollars in this day
and age. Great location, right? Upper East side is so much nicer than
say, the West Side with all those joggers and dog walkers. The only damn
thing that's killing this neighborhood are the lousy condos and co-ops.
These Godawful real estate people, these developers. All they do is make
it ugly. I mean, just how greedy can you get. Oh, that picture there,
that's my parents, their fiftieth wedding anniversary. I know, a lot a
photographs, right? I guess there's over a hundred in this room along.
(pause)
I don't know, I guess I just like good memories from when I was small.
They help remind me. And my parents, as you can see, were very photogenic.
That one is when they were on a trip to Las Vegas. Here they where in
Florida -- Disney World. Oh, I guess you guessed that from the large
Mickey Mouse guy standing next to them. (another nervous laugh) Can I get
you something, a gingerale, something? You're the first fellah I ever had
back to my apartment. Most of the time we end up...ah. Geez, never
expected to have somebody stop by. Hope you don't mind the mess. Now come
on, sit on the sofa. I can see that you're uncomfortable. That's it.
Better, right?
(pause)
So, ah, you sell insurance? Must be...that's right, you don't sell
insurance. I get confused. You sell real estate! How could I ever get
those two professions mixed up. Oh, by the way, what I said before about
developers and all, there are probably a lot of real estate people who
truly care. How's business? Must be pretty good in this day and age.
Especially in a city like New York. A lot of people. And they all need a
place to live. I guess you must feel that you're doing something very
important with your life; you know, providing people with shelter and all.
Must make you feel good inside. Me, heck, all I do is sell jewelry at
Macy's. "Yes Ma'am. "No, Ma'am. " "How about this, Ma'am? Oh darling,
it was made for you! Well, one has to do something in life, right? Do
something to fill the time.
(pause)
Mind if I sit next to you? It's the only real comfortable sit in the
entire house.
(long pause)
Listen Harry, why beat around the bush. You mind If I just reach over here
and put my hand ... I know it might be acting a little forward and
all...but...I never minded a man's penis and... (she watches the unseen
Harry stand) Did I say something wrong? You don't have to leave. I'm
sorry. I really didn't think it would bother you. Hey wait, I was only
joking. The whole thing was a joke. I'm a real comedian. You have to
know that about me. Harry? (it's obvious she is now alone) So, ah, it was
real nice talking to you. Never even got his last name. Can you imagine
that. Any other guy half his age would've jumped at the chance. Maybe I
should have eased into it.
(pause)
Damnit, isn't that the way it's suppose to be done these days! You play
hard to get and they never call again. You say, okay, let's do it and
they're out of here like a shot from a canon. What's the damn answer!
(pause)
Maybe I should've worn the other dress; the low cut one. And these flats,
should've worn heels. Hell, I thought modern men were suppose to like
aggressive women these days.
(pause)
Maybe he didn't like the way I said his name.
(pause)
Guess I can't go back to that bar. Harry will certainly fill them in on
good old Sandy Beaches, the over-the-hill broad who likes penises.
(pause)
Oh my God, did I make a fool of myself.
(pause)
What'd he come back here for: tennis, a little pin the tail on the donkey,
scrabble, what! If he wanted something else, why didn't he just say it!
He should've been up front, told me right off I was too old, said right
away that he wanted a "younger" woman. (she starts to softly cry) This is
it. Here it is. Nothing. I have maybe ten, twenty years left before I
die and I'm going to spend them alone. That's it. Not a damn thing to do
about it. My whole life by myself. Damn. Sandy Beaches, you are a loser,
an old lady who'll die and no one will know the difference. Funny in a
way. Men. Who do they think they are. And all these photos. Look at
them. (she smiles and wipes away the tears. As if she were talking to
someone in the room) Remember this picture, that trip we all took to
Niagara Falls in fifty-three? What a time. And that Godawful motel with
the bugs and leaking shower. Remember? Harry and I could've driven up
there next year. We'd stay at the same place, remember the time in
fifty-three. Oh, and Harry and I would make love twice, maybe three times
a day like it was our second honeymoon. And the kids, our kids, would laugh
when we told them of our adventure. And that summer we'd go to Disney
World, maybe Coral Gardens. And buy that house we always wanted in Vermont.
Harry's good that way. Always was a big spender with a huge heart, a giving
nature. Harry and Sandy, Sandy and Harry.
(pause)
I like the way you hold me, Harry. Your arms always feel so good around
me, holding me so I don't fall into a million pieces and be blown away by
the wind, blown higher and higher 'till Sandy is no more, 'till Sandy is
part of the sky, part of the sun, part of everything, part of nothing.
Hold me Harry so I don't blow away and disappear.
FADE TO BLACK
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
FISHING
by Martin Zurla
There was this murder and my Dad got himself involved.
Dad is taking me fishing at the pier. The parking lot is sparse for four
in the afternoon on a weekend in early September. Dad tries to get as
close to the entrance as possible. He hates walking far, say more than ten
feet. He curses as an old man beats him to the nearest parking spot. We
park the beat up Chevy twenty feet from the entrance and Dad curses some
more.
He is big, my Dad, big compared to a small kid like me. I'm short for
my age. But I keep my hair long like the older kids. Not that it matters
all that much. But I'm cool. Hair done up nice, D.A. tucked clean behind
my ears.
Dad parks the Chevy and we get out. I'm standing in the asphalt
parking lot watching the heat flare up from the bubbling tar and feeling
silly. My Keds are melting from the heat. I can smell the burning rubber.
Dad opens the trunk and we start to unload our gear. I turn and ask
him why he keeps so much junk in the car trunk: two empty grape jelly jars,
a broken bedroom clock, some pieces of non-matching floor linoleum, three
empty cans of cat food (we never owned a cat), a toy pistol, four dead
azalea plants, assorted Christmas decorations, a tube of roll on deodorant,
unopened, and, "Ya never know when ya might need somethin', Bobby boy," he
answers in a low tone, his scratchy, smoke stained voice bouncing back at
me from inside the car trunk.
He hands me a fishing rod and reel. Dad's never fished once in his
life. We just moved to the Gulf coast of Florida several months ago; his
wife, my Mom, has been dead these past two years. We now live in a small
silver trailer with huge rust spots. Bought it last month from an old lady
who's husband just walked out for a pack of Camels and never came back. I
sleep in the kitchen/dinning room/living room area on a pull down sofa.
He's in the bedroom five feet away.
The northeast finally got to Dad. "Who needs the ice, I ask ya? I
sure as hell don't," he said over corn flakes last February in our one
bedroom on East 17th Street. The place just reminded him of his wife my
Mom, I think. I heard him crying the night he told me we were, "Headin'
south, Bobby boy. Headin' to the sun and sand, to the beach parties and
palm trees. Goin' ta where a man can spread out, stretch his achin' bones.
Listen kid, it's a place where ya can hear _good_ country music and ya
don't have ta dress up all the damn time!" I liked the idea of not gettin'
dressed up.
When we got to sunny Florida after four hundred years on a train that
stopped in every one horse town, village, and hamlet this side of the
Mississippi, it rained for two days straight and Dad got a job at the
Seven/Eleven on 49th Street. I started school and selling papers in the
afternoon to help out.
"See boy, this present situation of ours is only a temporary affair.
Things'll break open for us when these here Floridians realize what they
got in me and you." Dad was what one calls an unskilled laborer. Me, I
was an unskilled kid with bad feet.
The only thing I missed about the northeast was the mountains. The
mountains, me, Dad and Ma. We'd take day trips by bus to Bear Mountain,
eat Mom's chicken and drink Koolaide.
Once, not so long ago, when we where sitting on the red and blue
blanket under a big oak, we just finished the food, Dad started drinking
coffee from a thermos while Mom was cleaning up, I noticed a look in Dad's
pale blue-green eyes, a look I had never since before nor since. Mom
reached up and loosened her hair and let it fall to the base of her spin,
let it fall and get caught in the mountain breeze and the shallow sun; Mom
with her white, ever so clean china doll skin, with cheeks like small
Mackintosh apples, a nose thin and straight as an arrow; Mom with her voice
like a summer rain kissing a tall sun flower; Mom letting her hair tumble
down, its ends lifting, flowing gently with the wind. His eyes looked at
his wife, but what they saw deep inside him I don't know. He put his
coffee down and took his large callous hand and touched his wife's face.
She smiled that smile, a smile so intense, a smile that was a huge
searchlight, its beam that had shinned out over my horizon and over Dad's
heart. He left his hand touching her face for what seemed like hours. She
looked into his eyes, her eyes green with gold specks on the iris rim. She
put her hand on his, took it and gently folded her lips into his
cigarette-stained hand, those fingers bigger than a hammer, and kissed them
again and again. My Mom, his wife, would be cold and in her grave in six
months time.
But now, now in the land of tangerines and plastic-coated food, I
hear, "Watch that ya don't drop that rod inta the Gulf, or you'll go in
after it," Dad says sternly, and me knowing full well what an actor he can
be. I tell him I'll be careful.
Something's wrong. I look at Dad and don't know why I hadn't noticed
earlier when we left the trailer. He's standing, in the middle of this
smoldering parking lot, the smell of my rubber soles burning in the heat,
the sun unrelenting at four in the afternoon, standing there wearing a pair
of bright orange polyester Bermuda shorts, a shinny, yellow silk shirt with
a thousand Hula dancers in grass skirts prancing across his chest, white
socks, and a pair of black steel toed, thick rubber soled Knapp shoes.
Dad's always had this thing, this compulsion to fit in, to be one of the
fellahs, to be a part of something, never an outsider. He, my Dad, wanted
to be accepted that day, to be a full-time, big-time, real-time fishermen.
He sees my expression and says it's what all the fishermen are wearing
this year, and that it isn't polite to stare. I ask him about the suntan
lotion and he says he forgot it in the medicine cabinet. "We'll see if
they sell any inside. And besides, real men don't wear suntan lotion." And
this said to me by a full grown adult wearing bright orange Bermuda shorts.
I told him I don't need any knowing full well that, before that huge red
ball in the sky falls behind that postcard horizon, I'll look like a one
pound lobster ready for the table and Dad will have to smear Noxema all
over my body.
Me, with the new rod and reel, Dad with his yellow tackle box with his
name stenciled on the top, head up the board walk toward the bait house and
the murder.
The pier itself lurches out about three hundred yards into the Gulf of
Mexico. It's maybe ten feet wide at its thinnest and fifteen at its widest
where little covered areas with bright green plastic roofs intrude now and
then. The boardwalk starts in the parking lot, slops up and over the beach
which lies about ten feet below at the walk's highest point. A family of
four sit underneath shading themselves from the sun. The water sloshes up
against the pylons. The father drinks wine from a gallon jug, the mother
clips her toenails and the two kids throw sand at each other.
When the board walk reaches beyond the shoreline, tree-size pylons are
sunk deep into the sand and sea shell bottom holding up the major section
of the pier. I wonder to myself if I can see Texas or maybe Mexico. A few
large steamers sleek and romantic, glide across the horizon. Where are
they going and can I go too? Maybe someplace far away with dark skinned
women with exposed breasts and tight muscles, endless jet black hair down
to their small feet and white toe nails, their bodies moving like some
mysterious smoke cloud, like some machine made by someone greater than man,
like motion itself timed with the rhythm of the surging, undulating sea,
salt and clean, blue and crystal. Dad heads for the bait house with me
pulling up my pants and following, the rod and reel slipping and hitting
the tattered, weather beaten boards. I want to curse but I'm not old
enough. Maybe next month.
Dad walks up to a glass counter that displays all sorts of hooks, fish
line, knives-things I'd never seen before-sinkers and floaters, bobbers and
tin fish made to fool the real thing, small nets to catch something the
size of an adult gold fish, a thing with claws, weights made of lead with
holes, paper towels, a thing to take the hooks from the fish's mouth. Dad
smiles his 'howdy and how are ya today' smile. The thin man behind the
counter grunts. Dad says, "What did ya say, ma friend?" and I knew in an
instant that this man was anything but my Dad's friend. He grunts about
the same again. "Oh, yeah, sure," Dad grins that 'what the hell is going
on' grin. The thin man turns in slow motion and grabs a huge strainer,
dips it in a large water trough. I think I hear small voices screaming.
The man comes up with a stack of live shrimp, each one no bigger than my
pinkie. He opens a white cardboard container like the ones you get Chinese
take-out in, dumps the unsuspecting shrimp in, places it on a scale that
couldn't weight a truck and says, "That'll be fifty cents." Dad says sure,
like he agrees with the man, reaches in his pocket and pulls out two
quarters, a dime, a nickel, and some pennies. He pays the man and holds on
to the carton. The man behind the counter takes a long look at Dad and his
Hawaiian shirt and smiles.
My embarrassment is beginning to increase. Dad looks like a small,
round Chinaman delivering a portion of Moo Goo Gai Pan or steamed
vegetables.
Dad says nothing, looks at me, smiles and is about to head out toward
the pier when he sees a group of three huge men looking more like
lumberjacks than fisherman standing by the soda machine; their beards long
and curly, strange particles of food popping out. They lean in toward one
another and giggle in their husky, beer belly voices, their eyes glancing
to the side at Dad. Can a kid hate his own father because of a pair of
orange polyester Bermuda shorts? I was feeling that it could be a definite
possibility. All I wanted was to be a shrimp swimming mindlessly in the
mildewed trough, or back on Second Avenue picking up Coke bottles.
Dad moves over to the group of men with the husky voices, "So guys,
how they runnin' today?" I never knew my Dad from New York City had a
southern drawl. I was learning more and more about my Dad who looked like
he belonged in the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade rather than in a small,
white washed bait house somewhere in the Gulf of Mexico.
The husky voiced men grunt something and Dad smiles and slaps one of
them on the back. My eyes automatically slam shut fearing the sight of my
Dad's brains decorating the four clapboard walls of the bait house.
When I open them to a squint, Dad is tugging on my shirt sleeve with,
"Come on boy, let's do some serious fishin'." I was stunned into silence.
Had he, my Dad, been accepted by these foreigners? Had they given him
their approval? I held onto my new K-Mart rod and reel for dear life and
followed him out into the blazing southern sun expecting a harpoon to come
bursting through our chests. Nothing happened and the patient fish were
waiting.
There was something exotic about the sun, the mellow water lapping
against the pier, the smells of the salt breeze and flapping fish, the
comical sounds of the gulls gawking.
Heading out over the creaking boards toward the distant horizon and
the end of the pier, I hear some voices from behind me. A group of
children are splashing in the low surf, gaily colored rubber rafts bobbing
off the white caps, water glistening, speckled bright and sharp from the
slanting sun. An old couple hold hands under a peach-colored umbrella. A
handsome man looking much like an airline pilot sits alone sipping a drink,
his eyes looking beyond the natural horizon to places he knew years before.
We pass a tall, thin man, his overalls covered in sticky blood,
cleaning a fish. Chop and the head comes off. He tosses it over the side
to a flock of waiting gulls. The huge gray birds snap and peck at each
other. During the fight and confusion, a small, black crane swoops down
under the gulls very beaks and steals the fish head. The gulls go berserk.
I can see the fish head sticking in the crane's long, slender throat. He'll
surely gag to death, I think to myself. Dad reads my mind. "It'll
dissolve. Those little suckers can take a full grown fish in one gulp.
Read that in one of your Mom's _National Geographics_." I feel better.
We find a spot and set down our gear on a bench. While Dad fumbles
with opening his tackle box and putting hooks on our line, I half watch him
and half the other people on the pier. The first thing that grabs my
attention are the teenage girls, all about sixteen or so. They're giggling
and hovering around a group of hardened boys about the same age. The boys
are being heroic popping their sand colored hair back, their eyes eager,
shirtless skin soaking up the blazing sun. They pass out dripping cans of
Old Milwaukee from a large crate, baloney sandwiches squeezed to death,
mayonnaise oozing from the wax paper.
A feeling over takes me, a strange sense of the future. "My future?"
I whisper to myself. The feeling, the awful feeling that some of these boys
of summer, golden brown, now sixteen in nineteen fifty-nine, their high
school rings dangling on some girl's neck, car club jackets spanking new
and crisp, will some day put their club jackets in the attic smothered in
white crystal moth balls and head out to die on some other planet in
someone else's nightmare, in a jungle slashed by rice paddies and straw
huts, waking maybe one morning to find themselves lying in a pool of
stench, maybe blood you can see spilling, oozing from the hole that brings
the world's putrid yesterdays tumbling inside your belly.
And they'll remember as they lay dying wondering why, and seeing the
face of the girl who has forgotten where she ever put his high school ring;
the girl who might find it years later when she's a woman and her kids ask
her where that ring came from and she'll, in an instant see like a freeze
frame, the young boy's face lit by the dashboard light as she feels him
inside her, hurting her, bursting her liquid, her youthful purity, the
radio wafting the Five Satins In The Still Of The Night, the young boy's
eyes glaring from the dull dashboard light, his iris ablaze with passion,
with power, yet a little sadder now, confused and she can't, for the life
of her, remember his name. And the same boy's Mom will be cleaning out the
attic one fall day as the crisp, bone chilling air clips the brown leaves
from the elm out back and she'll find the jacket, its satin material
reeking of motor oil and moth balls, slowly hold it close to her frail,
bird-like chest and let a small shallow tear fill her eyes, feel it glide
down her deeply lined cheek; touch her short cropped gray hair and remember
the day the nurse brought in this small bundle, her husband, its father
joking about how ugly new born babies are. She'll give it a name making it
more than an it. And that same name she'll whisper now in the attic to the
rafters and the winter coats that need airing, the clothes she came to take
downstairs, downstairs where the boy's room stays empty, mellow memories of
laughter and dirty day dreams with its walls still holding football banners
and a life size color photo of Stan Musial. She hears her voice say the
young boy's name and notices that there's something hollow about it,
vacant, distant.
"My future?" I wonder again, this time louder. "What'd ya say, Bobby
Boy?" my Dad asks. "Nothin'." is all I can think of. I watch as the bad
boys chug-a-lug their tepid beer and the girls squirm, panties moist from
their thoughts, their wishes so youthful now.
"See, Bobby," as Dad holds up the fish line and hook, his hands cut
open like raw meat from the razor-like line. He opens his tackle box,
lifts up the top tray, takes out a liverwurst sandwich on Wonder bread and
hands me half. "Want a Coke?" he asks. I nod okay. He takes out some
coins from his bulging pockets and I wonder why he keeps his pockets like
his car trunk-filled with all sorts of junk. I don't ask but take the dime
and Indian head nickel he gives me. "Ya want one?" I ask. "Nah," and I'm
off toward the bait house.
The smells smack me in the face, my head reeling almost knocking me in
the Gulf of Mexico: the kicking fish in their white buckets, the sandwiches
and beer, the sand and salt, the clouds and the magic sun, the pier itself,
the very fabric of the worn, tattered seams splitting, the worms working
their way through the splinters, the nails rusted to almost nothing.
Music springs from the beach. A portable radio is playing "Where are
you Little Star," and some kids run through the surf laughing. A woman
bends over and picks up a sea shell and holds it to her ear. A single
engine piper cub glides overhead. I think I hear someone crying.
I look back toward my Dad. He's still fumbling with his rod and reel
trying to get the small shrimp on his large hook. Somehow he looks
different, smaller, older. I turn and walk into the bait house.
A teenage couple stand in a corner near the candy machine. He
whispers something in her ear and she smiles. She kisses him like a cousin
kisses her aunt. He touches her waist and she puts her hand on his like a
trap door.
I walk over to the soda machine and start to lift my coins when I see
the price: twenty-five cents. I freeze in place. I have fifteen cents.
With the two coins back in my pocket, I head out to the sun and Dad.
Dad's line is dangling over the railing, his back hunched, arms tense
when I walk up behind him. He turns his face towards me and smiles. I
smile back. He faces the water. "Where's your soda?"
"Ah, had some water instead. Here." I hand him the two coins and he
looks into my eyes. I smile, but I'm a lousy actor. "Why don't you hold
onto the money. Ya might get thirsty later." I know he knows that the
soda is twenty-five cents. And he knows that I know he doesn't have the
extra dime and I lied so he wouldn't be embarrassed, but I know he's
embarrassed and he knows that I know it. We both look out across the green
deep and I ask him how it's goin'. He doesn't hear me, his eyes are
looking inside himself now.
I notice a young mother and her six year old daughter walking up the
pier. The mother is beautiful, the little girl a mirror image of her Mom.
The child wears two Mini Mouse berates in her golden brown hair, hair as
fine as silk, bright as the sun itself. The teenagers are getting louder
but Dad can't hear them either. The sun is burning a hole in my head. I
feel my skin hardening, cracking from the dryness. My mind wanders as the
teenage girls giggle and bend over.
And the girls of summer, hot and sticky, short-shorts tightly pressing
their round thighs, playing neatly on the rims of flesh bursting my
imagination, throwing me into a beyond place, nowhere I've ever been -- the
sun's heat pounding, rounding my brain to feel something deep inside, deep
inside.
The boys pass around a pack of Lucky Strikes, their belt buckles
reflecting in the sun, engineer boots spanking, new heels dug in, tattoos
of eagles and bleeding hearts, skulls, and Mom plaster their arms like
billboards.
And the girls of summer in fifty-nine, smoldering in their tight
short-shorts, hips hugging the railing, tough faces, eyes hard drawing deep
drags on their Kent cigarettes. My eyes strain, squinting from the sun,
the afternoon heat and the smell of my loins, fondling my rod and reel like
some precious thing from another world. And from the beach, a portable
radio blares Bill Haley and the Comets.
The girls dressed in strapless shoulders and short-shorts looking like
gasoline pumps with their hoses hot and squirting fire, their hands
flicking fast back and forth, their rubber skin encased in red and yellow
cotton, eyes made up like the Long Ranger, dark green holes, thick black
lashes fluttering, flab wrapped round in billowing profusion; crab apple
breasts cupped not too neatly in mini-mini halters pumping hard on a young
boy's endless imagination. I start to ache.
One girl with lips red as the fires of damnation; demon-like she
puckers pleasure beyond my wildest, a white Cadillac Eldorado on her mind,
sleek skirted Chevies, canvas top down cursing Main Street, mercilessly
squeezes her boyfriend's arm. Another thinner, tougher looking with almond
eyes, hair black as coal all her furnaces aglow with lush smells, sits with
her legs open. Good God, I can't take anymore. I turn to face the Gulf
but, like a magnet, I'm drawn back to the still frame of the legs
beckoning.
And all the while I think -- these are girls I would never date once I
grew up, yet girls that would haunt me constantly, forever filling me with
such tingling, the thought of their peach fur skin thrilling me.
And me picturing myself as I watch these girls; myself dark tanned,
leather tough by the white sand and melting sun, cutoff shorts and Foster
Grants-I always picture myself in sun glasses being sharp as a tack,
talking dirty, muscles snapping, hands moving like ice, crisp and true. I
smile at the girls as they eye my six feet up and down. I smile back with
a rough expression letting them know who's boss. They squirm in their
imaginations of me lying taut on top of them, our bodies moving with the in
and out surf.
I notice the man who looks like an airline pilot sitting on one of the
benches. He talks to the young mother and her little girl; all smiling as
the mother bursts out laughing, her voice chilling the sky and my skin.
The pilot touches the little girl's hair, golden brown, and all three laugh
at some intimate joke. They, all three, could be the picture of the happy
American family vacationing in the land of oranges and sea shells. But
something stirs inside me. I'm frightened and am not sure why.
I take my rod and reel and drop the line, shrimp dangling, squirming,
into the warm Gulf. Dad shows me how to hold the rod, release the catch,
take up the slack, then click the catch back again. We lean against the
railing and look out beyond our own thoughts at the pencil-like horizon and
Texas, maybe Mexico.
The airplane pilot is still talking to the young mother and her small
daughter. There's something about the three of them that strikes me as
odd. The handsome man seems to be paying more attention to the daughter
than the pretty mother.
The mother walks over to the group of giggling teenagers and asks them
for a smoke. The boys are eager and fumble for their packs stuck in the
t-shirt sleeves. The mother is lit and takes a deep drag on the Lucky.
She looks like a professional smoker. She reaches over and takes a can of
Old Milwaukee from one of the boys and chug-a-lugs the entire can. She
looks like a professional beer drinker. Her eyes snap onto one if the
older looking boys. Some of the teenage girls whisper to each other and
frown. The boy is not dumb. He likes to be looked at. He seems to get
taller. I notice that he has arched his body slightly and is on his toes.
She smiles a smile that says more than hello. He smiles back.
I take a quick look at the airplane pilot. He is now stroking the
little girl's hair. The little girl seems confused and somewhat
embarrassed, certainly uncomfortable.
Someone whacks me in the arm. I turn quickly to see my Dad's face, a
smile a mile long from ear to ear. He nods his head to the side. I follow
his eyes. There, coming down the board walk, rod and reel in toe, tackle
box and water bucket dragging behind, is a short, squat man dressed just
like Dad. He smiles at the sun and sea breeze. My eyes are like silver
dollars. The man approaches us, stops, looks at Dad and says, "Great
outfit, buddy." and moves on toward the end of the pier. Dad makes a humph
sound like he was some fashion mogul and sits with total self-indulgence,
his rod cast out into the green.
Loud laughter from the group of teenagers and the young mother gets my
attention. She's chugging another beer and the boys applaud and the
teenage girls sneer. Off to the side, the little girl wants to call out to
her mother but says nothing. The airplane pilot whispers something in the
child's ear and the child frowns.
The young mother is drinking more and more. One of the boys has his
arm around her. The teenage girls are now sitting on a bench, coats
wrapped around them, shivering from the mounting easterly, their eyes
hallow looking down at the planking floor, all looking into the fiery green
sea, all the time wishing the young mother with the golden child was down
there prancing and primping with the fishes, not their boy friends of
summer. The other boys are talking about cars and who's got the fastest
roadster shinning bright, glittering flat heads, tight torque.
All of a sudden I notice that the sun has gone down disappeared like
some ghost. I look over at my Dad who was looking into the briny, still
tightly clutching his rod and reel.
I turn back to look at the teenagers and the young mother. She is
gone, disappeared like the sun.
It was starting to get cold, my bones rattled from the chilling
breeze. A quiet descends upon the pier. It is an eerie stillness. The
only sound is the water gently slapping against the pylons.
Then, suddenly out of the dark, out of the dank, black darkness, a
voice screams, screams a sound so hideous, from such an inner depth. I
quickly spin toward it. And there, standing at the edge of the water,
standing deep in the wet sand is the young mother -- a snap shot black and
white frozen for ever and ever. In her arms is the lifeless form of her
daughter, her young hair, once golden and bright, now cruelly matted to her
bleeding skull.
"Look," someone shouts.
We all turn. There he is, the tall, neatly trimmed pilot running like
hell down the beach, running away.
"He's getting away," I shout at the top of my lungs. And than, like
in a dream, in slow motion, my Dad throws down his rod and reel, screaming,
"NOOOOOOOO!!!!" And, with one lunge, leaps from the pier into the water.
He swims so fast, faster than I had ever seen anyone swim. Like a shark, a
bullet streaking through the wet towards the fleeing pilot.
The young mother's wailing bounces from the black stars above and
comes crashing down, back to earth, to my ears, my soul.
And in another flash, Dad is now on the shoreline running like hell.
The murderer is slowing, his breath spent.
Dad is on him, a full-body tackle.
They're both down in the sand, arms and fists flailing. My father is
screaming into the killer's face, spiting each word as if they were knives
slicing, cutting into the man.
Later, after they had pull my Dad from the killer, thank him and take the
battered and beaten criminal away, we walk alone along the beach, our heads
deeply bent. I could see the glimmer of blood dripping from his nose, his
left eye was nearly shut from the swelling.
"So...ah...yeah..."
I just couldn't find the words to say, the way to express myself.
I kicked the sand a couple of times.
We don't say a word about what happened. We walk for hours as I think
to myself I have never, ever felt such deep love, is my small heart so full
with such a true and honest caring as I do for my father today, the day he
took me fishing.
________________________________________
Martin Zurla is the founder and
Artistic Director of the Raft Theatre (Theatre Row, NYC). His stage play,
_Old Friends_, won the Forest A. Roberts Playwrights Award; his play,
_February, the Present_, won the Stanley Drama Award. Mr. Zurla's plays
won the Colorado University Playwrights Competition for two consecutive
years (1985 and 1986). Plus numerous other theatrical awards, Mr. Zurla
was twice awarded the prestigious Theatre of Renewal Awards for his
"Resplendent contribution to the development of American Theatre." Mr.
Zurla recently had a series of one act plays published by Open Passages of
NYC, _Aftermath: The Vietnam Experience_.
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POETRY
-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
AFTER FIVE AT THE OFFICE
by Len Edgerly
mechanical flatulence
the sound of a Harley
outside my office window
smooth optical whir
of computer parts
chipmunk sounds
from the hard drive digesting
a long file downloading from
America Online in little gulps
like a bird feeding
from a modem
purr of the Laserwriter
revealed in the after-five
emptiness of the company
I make leather squeaks
with my boot against
the swivel chair
secret smooth fan
inside the Power Macintosh
humming the almost note
of pale music
now heard now seen
these quiet sentinels
at the rest of the day
beneath whispering
their mechanical murmurs
of perception
________________________________________
Len Edgerly has poetry published or forthcoming in
_High Plains Literary Review_, _Owen Wister Review_, _Amelia_, _The Morpo
Review_, and in a chapbook, _Disputed Territory_. A member of the Western
States Arts Federation Board of Trustees and the Wyoming Arts Council, he
makes his living as a natural gas company executive in Casper, Wyoming.
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LIFE, THE UNIVERSE, AND EVERYTHING
by Marc A. Leckstein
Life, the Universe, and Everything.
Why do these things mean so much to me?
I know that I am nothing but a man.
My thoughts should be of current plans.
Instead, my mind is out there wandering.
It spends all its time wondering:
Will I live or will I die?
Will I love or will I cry?
Will I learn the truth of life?
Will that girl become my wife?
Is my job what I envisioned?
Did I ask for this division?
Is there a God, is there a Devil?
Must I live up to one of their levels?
Why am I confused? Why should I care?
Why did I write this poem? Is it too bare?
Does it show my naked heart?
Will it act to tear me apart?
Life, the Universe, and Everything
Why do these things mean so such to me?
I know that I am nothing but a man.
Still, I need an answer to the plan.
I must find the blueprint to my soul,
Discover the truth behind it all.
I need to know the best I can,
What it means to be human.
________________________________________
Marc A. Leckstein is a student at Monmouth
College who aspires to work in politics.
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XY
by Anthony Fox
The mystery of a man
the child, the killer
the hidden woman
The real man behind
the social perception
Who I should be
what I should see
and in some dark hidden
closet, away from judging
eyes, the real man sits
with dried up tits
an X instead of
a Y
________________________________________
By Anthony Fox .
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PERCEPTIONS
by Laura D. Turk
in my dreams
I am one of two lovers
gazing into each others' eyes
at a candlelight dinner
just for two.
one of two lovers
staying up half the night
discussing every little thing
under the sun.
one of two lovers
sitting lazily on the lawn
exchanging tender kisses
and quiet promises.
one of two lovers
lying on a beach
awakening each others' bodies
with soft caressess.
the reality is
our dining is shared
by noisy children
who crowd our table
pushing and shoving.
we both work hard
and need our sleep
and talk centers mostly
around pragmatic things.
there's no time for laziness
and kisses are mostly
hello and goodbye
and promises shattered.
usually his caresses
mean he wants sex;
we're no longer lovers
just bed partners.
I wonder why
reality falls so far short
of our dreams.
________________________________________
Laura D. Turk <100335.3650@compuserve.com> was born and raised in
Philadelphia, PA. She has lived in Germany for the last ten years, first
as a military wife, and now as a civilian employee of the U.S. government.
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OTHER MAGAZINES ON THE NET
-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
_InterText_, a bi-monthly magazine publishing fiction of all types, edited
by Jason Snell. Back issues are available at ftp.etext.org, under the
/intertext directory.
___
_Quanta_, a science fiction magazine. Each issue contains fiction by
amateur authors and is published in ASCII and PostScript formats. Back
issues of Quanta are available from export.acs.cmu.edu in the pub/quanta
directory.
___
_Fiction-Online_ considers submissions of poetry, short-shorts, short
stories, and short plays. Mainstream and science fiction are the preferred
genres. Submissions should be made to the subscription address,
ngwazi@clark.net. Back issues may be obtained by anonymous FTP from
ftp.etext.org or at gopher.cic.net.
___
_Angst_ publishes prose, poetry, prose poetry, and postcard stories. They
also highlight other experimental forms of prose and poetry. Back issues
are available through anonymous FTP at ftp.etext.org. E-mail
uh186@freenet.victoria. bc.ca for info.
-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
BACK ISSUES
Back issues are available at
ftp.etext.org
via anonymous FTP/Gopher under the directory
/pub/Zines/Whirlwind
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That's it! Thank you for reading.
NEXT ISSUE OF WHIRLWIND:
MARCH 1995
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